


Soul of the Lost.

by FeliciaAmelloides



Series: A Oneshot a Day... [43]
Category: Ib (Video Game), Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Genre: Angst, Creepypasta, Crossover, Cursed Art, Death, Grieving, Loss, M/M, Modern Aged Up AU, paintings, ressurection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-28 20:06:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13911207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeliciaAmelloides/pseuds/FeliciaAmelloides
Summary: There is an urban legend that a painting in a gallery can bring someone you've lost back from the dead if you record it for seven minutes and six seconds.Some of the island boys go to investigate.





	Soul of the Lost.

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot changes plot three times throughout the course of it. Originally it was going to be kind of funny and fluffy, then it was going to be a little more tragic and then I crossed it over with Ib?
> 
> The Lord of the Flies people are aged up by a few years (they're teenagers) and they have nothing to do with the island. I'm just using the characters.
> 
> Also, I got my first comment! Thank you so much~

Hearts break. People die. Life goes on.

Those are the sorts of things people who haven't lost someone important to them say. Then they do lose someone, and they realise that their lives have been a lie all along.

Only very few know of ways to reverse the damage. But even then, it comes at great consequence.

The art gallery was a busy, lively place, filled to the brim with excited children and exhausted parents rushing past the loved up couples taking photographs of paintings with vintage Polaroids. Not the place Ralph wanted to be.

But there he was, standing in the main lobby with his closest friends hovering around him. Jack had only agreed to accompany them to prove Maurice wrong. Bill was only there because he had a bet going with Maurice that they had to do everything together for a year, and he really didn't want to lose. And Ralph had come because he was so desperate to believe the urban legend that the brunet had melodramatically told them the last time they met up that he joined them on this stupid quest.

"They say that if you can record the painting for 6 minutes and 66 seconds, a demon will appear and make a deal with you." Maurice's eyes glowed amber in the torchlight.

"That's bullshit! 6 minutes and 66 seconds is just 7 minutes and 6 seconds!" Jack's outburst sounded too loud.

"Why would a demon appear if you record a painting?" Bill's question was good, but kind of pointless since his best friend had just explained that ten minutes ago. Now everyone turned to Ralph, waiting for his reaction.

"Let's go and see it. Then we'll know for sure."

Shit. It had been his idea after all. All for someone he was never going to get back. It was stupid. Really stupid. He was stupid.

The first obstacle was not that the painting didn't exist. Actually, it wasn't even hidden. Known simply as 'Animae Damnatorum', it was the centrepiece of an exhibition on love and loss on the third floor of the gallery. When the group arrived, they encountered the obstacle.

 

Yet again, shit.

Before anyone could stop him, Maurice had raced into the exhibit without thinking of a plan, so everyone readily followed him. Ralph found that for once he actually agreed with Jack. He was sceptical about this whole thing. Urban legends should never be trusted.

And then he noticed something rather strange about the exhibit.

Everything was alive.

Not in the same sense as his friends, no, but at the same he could feel something incredibly powerful emanating from each and every painting in the exhibit. From the blonde girl in the green dress gazing out blankly from her frame to the beautiful landscape covering the majority of one of the walls, every felt somehow alive.

"The website I found this on said that every single painting here is cursed." Maurice whispered almost reverently, looking around in awe at the paintings and statues adoring the walls.

"Yeah, and it also said that the Illuminati used these paintings as weapons in their war against the Kangaroo War of Liechtenstein in which the Australian wildlife emigrated northwest into Europe and-" Jack was cut off in his rant before he could even get started. Clearly he had memorised the entire creepypasta just to say that rant.

"-We get it." Bill stated flatly, struggling to hide his laughter at Jack's expression.

And then their brief humour was stopped entirely because they saw the painting.

Animae Damnatorum...

When Bill looked at the painting, he saw a blank canvas.

When Jack looked at it, he saw himself, as if it were a mirror.

When Maurice looked at it he saw the dark haired boy from school, the one who hated everyone and ended up killing three people and himself. He struggled to hold back tears. That person was so familiar, and he'd never expected to see him again.

When Ralph looked at it...

...he found that the urban legend was true.

For there, staring straight back at him, was the 14 year old boy who had died saving his life. An epileptic fit caused by the stress of jumping in front of the car had ended up killing him. And the worst part was that the car has braked in time anyway, so none of it was necessary.

Simon.

Beautiful, batty, constantly fainting Simon. The second student to die at their school in a single term. A single month. That had been enough to traumatise most of the school body. But not one of them had actually known him. No one but Ralph.

Without thinking it through, Ralph held his phone to the painting, trying his best to be discreet, and hit record.

He almost screamed.

There, staring up at him through the lens, was the most hideous and horrendous looking abomination he'd ever seen.

Her entire form was cloaked in a black so thick that no light passed through it whatsoever, and her eyes looked like spilled paint, two messy, bright red dots roughly scribbled into the solid blackness. Her mouth was no better, scratched on roughly onto a huge, wide, crimson grin which tore her face apart.

Her body was dripping sludge mixed with a deeper, darker red liquid. Blood, perhaps? Or ink? He couldn't tell.

Her mouth opened to reveal row upon row of razor sharp teeth which could cut him apart in an instant. She grinned, and he flinched.

Then he heard her voice, possibly through the recording or maybe in real life. He still couldn't tell. No one else seemed to have noticed, but he wasn't looking at them so he didn't know for sure.

"Hello. You must be the next one to find your lost soul here. It's nice to meet you." Her voice was rough and cracked, but demanded attention that drew any and all replies from his lips in a single, warm exhale.

"I suppose that I should tell you of this painting. That's what most people want to know. You see, I am a being of higher standing in my own world, and many others serve under me. One day, one of my servants fell in love with a beautiful human. However, my servant was immortal, and the human was not. She died, and he was left so heartbroken that he confessed all of his misdeeds to me before creating this painting," she paused, as if for breath. Her story sounded like one from a fairytale. Ralph felt lost in her voice,

"Now I, being a kind and merciful mistress, decided to offer my servant a deal. He would give me his immortality, and I would give him his love. Of course, he agreed, and I returned her to him. But she was critically ill and very old, so she died within a few hours. That was my vengeance. He betrayed my law, and so he did not get to decide the terms for our agreement. In his sorrow, he hid the painting away until his own death. But then you humans found it. Now, I come here from time to time to assist those who interest me. You interest me. You can see me, after all." She reached out to tap his camera. A chill ran down his spine.

"This box seems to help you to see me. But I shall pay it no mind. Now, I offer you a deal. Give me something of vital importance to you... let's say that locket of yours... and I will return the lost soul you so desire. Leave it here tomorrow, and the day after your soul will be returned. But I must warn you- I only make deals once. If you don't show up tomorrow, I will take him for myself. Choose wisely..." Her grin widened until her entire face was a bold, brilliant red, filled to the brim with thick, simmering blood.

And then she was gone.

*

When Ralph came to, he was lying on the floor of the art gallery just outside of the exhibit, his mother's prized locket in his hand and his phone on the ground next to him. His friends hovered above him. He stared at them blankly.

Without another word, he left for home.

*

It was the next day. Ralph had returned to the art gallery with the locket, entering the exhibit once more with ease. His head hurt. When he reached the painting, he saw it as a blank canvas. Ducking below the velvet rope which guarded it from reality, he pressed the locket of his past mother to his lips gently, a small farewell to the woman he'd cared for for so many years. Simon needed it more than her he supposed.

Placing the locket on a tiny hook jutting out from the painting's frame, Ralph left as quickly as he could.

*

It was the next day. Ralph returned to the art gallery with speed this time, sprinting up to the third floor the moment the place opened because he wanted, no, he needed to see for himself whether the deal had been done-

Oh. Oh.

Simon gazed back at him, their eyes locking for a second which lasted an eternity.

And then Ralph was running to him, and he ran back, and when their arms encircled each other he wondered if he had somehow died and reached Heaven because suddenly the person he yearned for the most was alive and well and he could finally tell him how he felt-

Then he realised. Simon had died after having a severe epileptic fit. There was no way that he could recover from one here.

And it was at that moment that Simon collapsed.

The next several minutes went by in a blur of colours, light and sound. People screaming- or maybe it was him-, sobs, red and blue, paramedics, gallery staff, the exhibits looking over him like sentinels of misery and doom.

And then he was in an ambulance whilst the love of his life got emergency life support as the paramedics desperately tried to fix him.

And then hours had passed and again he had given up, glad at least that he had gotten to hug the boy one last time.

*

And then it had been a day, and he had spent the night at the hospital.

Standing over the bed, blue fixed on green, heartbeats throbbing together.

They had been in time. Simon wasn't dead anymore.

And Ralph was pretty sure that he was crying, but he didn't really know because he was so, so happy that everything had turned out well.

*

Little did he know just how far from the truth that was.

The locket was very important to the blond, and therefore it is very important to me as well. When I took it, I returned his lost soul as promised. But I found that the locket could do so much more than I bargained for. All I needed now was an artist who could truly control the power of his art.

An artist known as Guertina. It wouldn't be hard to contact him.

Using the tiny painting filled with memories and the locks of her gorgeous, long blonde hair, I created a new version of me, one who people would want to be friends with.

I want to be free.

And with this new form, a new plan and enough power to get out, all I need is one key person. Then, I will be.

**Author's Note:**

> It became an Ib origin story? Plot twist~
> 
> I love Ib so much. It's an amazing game with so much to it. Not sure if including Mary counts as spoilers, so I'm really sorry if it does.
> 
> I'd recommend playing Ib if you can, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't free. Still, it's worth the money.
> 
> As for the oneshot, I'm not proud of it but it's better than some of the ones I've written.
> 
> Prompt- A curse held in a painting is accidentally released.
> 
> Actually based on a novel idea I have, but I didn't use the idea in the oneshot.
> 
> Original Number- 46.


End file.
